This is my first time posting here in quite a while (I was under "Graham Aker"), and I was quite the advocate for this pair. I didn't comment on it back in 2016 but I did not expect the kiss to happen and was honestly pretty floored (was pretty happy though) when it did. However, in the back of my head, some small part of didn't want her to appear again (on screen with Ash) because I felt that IF she appeared again it be completely ignored.
In a lot of ways the episode felt like it was trying it's hardest to maneuver around touching on it (it's by far his shortest reunion to date) and I'm not entirely sure that's a good sign for it's future in potential later cameos...different director visions and all, with this one seemingly just going for platonic friendships all around. I'd personally love to hear how the Japanese fandom looked at it because I know it's very popular. Do they think it's more platonic-ish now, or unchanged? I'd say it feel like it's in a sort of limbo.
That being said, it was good to see Serena take a different role and use the words Ash used for her. Seeing how far she's come from her early XY days as a result of Ash's influence and her own hard work was truly a treat.
Welcome! Or I should say "welcome back."
I agree that this episode was trying to delicately walk around the kiss at the end of XY. I would assume that it is something that they're not ready to address, and if it is addressed, it won't be until the end of Ash's time on the show. They did manage to communicate a lot in the short time they allotted to the reunion, though.
I don't know if I would agree that they were just going for platonic friendship. But the scene was short, and I think that it is open for interpretation.
I saw something completely different in the reunion scene at the end. While it was short, it was also significantly different than his reunions with Iris and Dawn. When he reunited with Iris, he was champing at the bit to have their PWC battle, something that Iris made fun of him for. His reunion with Dawn seemed awkward at first. He was more focused on Cresselia while Dawn talked about their time traveling Sinnoh, and this was something that Chloe kind of made a snarky comment about.
His reunion with Serena? Completely different than the other two. He wanted to talk to her. He said he was doing the PWC and his goal was to become the strongest battler, which is much more specific than his normal "Pokemon Master" goal. Serena was also excited.
That being said, it was good to see Serena take a different role and use the words Ash used for her. Seeing how far she's come from her early XY days as a result of Ash's influence and her own hard work was truly a treat.
Seeing Serena's character growth was one of the highlights of this episode, especially since she was able to use everything Ash taught her to mentor Chloe.
I'd imagine this thread (or any SNS) would have had better impression as well if not for the animedia leak
I think that this thread had an overall positive impression of Serena's return than the episode review thread.
I think it will be interesting to see how the remaining cameos play out, and if Serena remains the shortest one (which I feel is a given already). I just personally wanted a little time for it to breathe, but if it did it might run into the problem you mentioned so the writers might be in a tough spot. By the same token, the consequence of this is of course we don't know if this is how all their future interactions will be or if she'll even appear again.
I don't think that they're done with Serena. She is the only companion that had significant character growth, and both her regular and contest outfits were redesigned. That's a lot of effort for someone who would only show up once, and I feel like a single appearance would be highly unlikely because of that.
I also feel like Chloe's role in JN057 could come later in the series.
Anyway, I can only assume that the writers only intended for her to return for a moment to see how she has come so far. Based on JN105, I'd say that she's still working on her growth. While she does appear and sounded mature, she still has some work to do. It's quite evident with the way how she talks. Early in the episode, you can almost not recognize her voice because of how mature she sounded like but when she gets reunited with Ash, her tone of voice suddenly shifted to her old voice back in XY days. Quite evident that she's still working on her maturity.
I'm really curious on this comment. Why do you feel that she has to work on her maturity because her voice shifted when she saw Ash? Ash's voice also shifted. Both voices seemed to convey excitement.
